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In Defense of Tiny Harris’ New Eye Color

Was I the only one who had absolutely no idea that people could permanently change their eye color with surgery? Apparently I was stuck in the ’90s, thinking that colored contacts, which never look real, were the only option. Who knew?

Apparently Tameka “Tiny” Harris—celeb mom, wife of rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris and reality-TV star—did. During promotional rounds for her latest reality show, Tiny & Shekinah’s Weave Trip, fans noticed that Harris had a new enhancement: a new color she would eventually call “ice gray.” Harris turned to BrightOcular to permanently lighten her dark-brown eyes by having an implant of “thin, flexible, biocompatible, colored, medical-grade silicone” applied to her eyes. The procedure costs around $8,000.

Eyes are sensitive, which everyone knows. Some remembered the horrifying story that made the rounds last year of a Canadian woman who had a similar surgery to obtain green eyes and who claimed that she had become legally blind as a result of her beauty enhancement. (The BrightOcular website says the “patented design of the implant minimizes the risks of prolonged pressure increases in the eye that can lead to glaucoma and blindness.”) Seeing Harris’ new eyes, many wondered, what would compel her to put her vision at risk to become Pecola Breedlove’s fantasy come true?

“I saw that,” wrote a commenter on humor blogger Luvvie Ajayi’s Facebook page, where she lightheartedly tackles all things interesting (and Scandal), including Harris’ new eyes. “There’s no way, because I’d be terrified they’d ruin my vision or something.”